I never gently fall to sleep. I try and set my mind to conjure happy memories. I reckon this is what I might look like whilst I dream. Hair tousled, lips slightly opened. I see myself slightly grainy. I am between two universes--one where I wish I could remain and one where my body lies. Some would say it would be hell to live in a memory. But what happens if your present is far more painful? Would YOU sleep, perchance to dream?

Dear Ethers, 

Have you ever had that empty feeling in your chest?  You know it.  The one where you breathe in and there feels like a huge hole and then a slight shiver of anxiety and pain.  This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing lately.  And I’ve looked at my last posts and realized that they have been so negative and I’m scared that they’re depressing you.  This is what always happens to me.  I make friends because I seem effusive and happy.  But as time roles on and life happens, I start to reveal myself and people get turned off by the real me.  The me that is a depressive.  A glass half-empty girl.  The scared, nail-biting to cover her face for protection, sleep all day, cry at night, girl who might look good on the outside but is crumbling on the inside.  See, I’ve never written a journal—especially a public one.  So, I don’t know what’s going to happen.  Will you all go away?  Or, in some sad, miserable way, does this bring you closer to me because either misery loves company or you feel sorry for me?   

Every night before I go to bed, I close my eyes and I try to conjure happy moments to try and calm myself.  I dream about things like the first time I met English gent and bought him a giant topiary (about 5 feet tall) I schlepped home from Columbia Road Market (on the tube) to surprise him.  He still gave me butterflies then.  I visualize me buttoning up my dad’s white shirt under his tux before he went to the Emmy’s.  He swore he wouldn’t win but I bought him a “No Fear” brand shirt that said “If you can’t win don’t play” that he wore underneath his fancy button down.  And all I hear is the booming sound when they announced his name while my brother and I were sitting in the audience that evening.  He let me carry the statue all night.  I dream of when I was a ballerina and got a lead part.  We were poor but my mom saved every penny and bought me the expensive pink tulle dress that I needed to perform and I swore to myself that I would dance my heart out that night and prove to her it was worth every cent. I still have that little pink dress in my closet—I never stored it because it reminded me to be humble.  I remember not wanting to read the last pages of “Gone With The Wind” because I didn’t want to lose Scarlett.  And that I left that damned book with 3 pages in it for a year before I had the heart to finish it.  And when I did, boy did I cry.  

Life is full of memories.  We all have them don’t we?  But that’s my point.  We are all so complicated.  Everyone has a story.  And we all love to hear the good ones.  But it’s when they turn ugly—we flee.  So when I lay in bed at night, I imagine being that girl with all the good stories to tell.  I dream of being only in the good moments and cutting away all of the ugly patches in my life.   Yes, I do take anti-anxiety medication to help lull me away.  To take away the ache.  How very sad.  I’m a broken machine that needs pills to fix it.  You know, I know so many people who are so happy with their lives.  And they never wanted for much.  They are in normal jobs, making normal money married to an everyday Joe.  Why couldn’t I want that?  Why did I have to want the world?  Why did I have to be a dreamer? What comes with dreams are risks, pain and loss.  

Ethers.  I want to run.  Bolt. Hide. Fade away.  Because then nothing new could hurt me and I could just cut away the shit and close my eyes everyday and I wouldn’t have to live in my dreams.  I relate to Scarlett when she said to Rhett “Where shall I go, what shall I do?” Because I don’t have anywhere to go AND I don’t know what to do.  And we all know what he answers….the famous line, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”  And then he walks in the fog.  But do you remember what she says?  “I’ll think of it all tomorrow….after all, tomorrow is another day.”  Yes, tomorrow IS another day…………but the nightmare is a perpetual tomorrow, AND tomorrow AND tomorrow…and the the fear of nobody left TO genuinely give a damn.

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365

This painting is by one of my favorite artists, Sir John Everett Millais. Usually he captures women who are rich and opulent. What I like about this painting is how he is studying a humble seamstress in muted colors. She stares out the window pondering her future and her life. I wonder whatever happened to the sitter in this painting? Did her fingers bleed for the rest of time, becoming rough from years of labor? Did she ever escape the fate of this moment and leap through that window, or was she forever captured in this existence of hers? I wonder, will I ever leave the canvas that life is painting for me? I want to make sure that before the varnish dries, I'm happy with the finished portrait.

Dear Ether,

I had the most magical night on Wednesday with English gent.  He and I have been jonesing for art and culture for some time. We were so used to having our pick of museums and underground do’s in England.  We’ve been sorely missing it.  Los Angeles has a few good museums, but it just isn’t the same vibe as London.  There is The Getty which is more about the museum structure itself than the art and LACMA which has some amazing pieces, but once you go, you sort of have to wait like, 6 months before it changes its scenery.  There is a MOCA, but man is it a schlep!  There are a few other token little museums out there too, but I’m not privy to the art scene here.  One that is amazing is the Huntingon which I’ve been meaning to take English gent to.  The gardens are extraordinary with different themes, and the museum houses a Guttenberg Bible and original manuscripts from famous authors.  Los Angeles also has Frank Lloyd Wright homes you can check out, and I’ve been foolish and haven’t visited those yet.  But, there is nothing like the Tate or the National Gallery in Los Angeles.  I just spent 8 years visiting these places and getting to know them inside out.  The Rodin’s and the Rembrandt’s became old friends and I just miss them so much.  

Knowing our desperation for culture was dire, the Big Apple Beauty, who lives it up museum-wise in NYC, bought us tickets to The Pageantry of the Masters, which is a festival in Laguna Beach (about an hour and half drive from Los Angeles) that is the most remarkable event.  They plan it all year, taking painstaking measures to do the incredible: using live people to re-enact famous paintings using scenery that has been copied perfectly to mimic the artwork.  It is a marvel.  The paintings become 3-dimensional and the characters who play the roles in the famous artwork don’t even breathe, that’s how still they are.  They are literally painted with the exact brush strokes someone like Frieda Kahlo used. Human beings are transformed into art.  They also have a narrator who described the paintings, gives a history of the painter, all while beautiful music like Brahms and Beethoven are played by a live orchestra.  This is all done in an oudoor coliseum under the stars.  It’s simply magical. The amazing thing was none of these actors were being paid.  They were all volunteers.  Though the show only lasts a month (and is sold out a year in advance) the dedication and love for this Pageantry of the Masters is unbelievable.  I was so happy to have been part of the evening.

Laguna is a really interesting town because it is a real artists colony.  Every other store is a gallery and they are famous for paintings called “Plein Air” which literally means in the open air.  Originally started in Europe by the Impressionists trying to capture light from outside, they took their easels into the landscapes they were painting and captured the light as they saw it.  Normally they would sketch outside and then re-create colors as they remembered it in their studios.  But Plein Air allowed them to snag the tones in the moment which added a whole new spectrum of color to paintings changing the way light was looked at forever.  Laguna was the perfect spot because of the flawless weather, the sepia toned landscapes with the bright blue ocean and the warm sun, creating amazing shades of color reflecting off of nature.  These galleries house many of these incredible paintings and they are so unique.  Though the idea of the art came from Europe, I really associated it so much with America.  But maybe this was because the paintings I saw were of American landscapes.  

An example of Plein Air art. Truthfully, it's not my cup of tea. But you can see how the artist captures the landscape and is trying to grasp the light and nature.

I enjoyed seeing artists at work and learning about a new form of art.  We ate lunch outside with the sea as a backdrop and just had a wonderful escape from the drudgery we’ve been experiencing lately.  It’s really funny, as beautiful as Laguna was, both English gent and I felt the same way—that it just wasn’t us.  It was too laid back.  Too calm.  We’re not accustomed to people walking slowly and a more laid back way of life.  We’re so used to the hustle and bustle of a big city, it just seemed too small town.  I think we were happy to visit, but very happy to be going back to Los Angeles (which still doesn’t seem to suffice). 

I hope that English gent and I find our niche.  That we can figure out where we belong.  Like the artists in the paintings caught in a frame, English gent and I also feel like we are stuck in a place we can’t move.  We feel painted into the scenery, but unlike the characters in the Pageantry of the Masters, we don’t get to wipe off the make-up and return to our normal lives.  We are forever on a canvas waiting for our portrait to be finished, but we seem never to be able to get our opus completed.  I dream of being unleashed from my painted life and being free.  I still want to be colorful and creative, just not locked into the landscape.  Like the players in the show, I want to breathe.  

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365

PS: I’ve attached a slide show below for you to see behind the scenes of the Pageantry of the Masters. I felt that my description wouldn’t do it justice and I think you need to really see it to understand what it looks like and what goes into making it the marvel that it is. Remember, any people you see in the completed paintings are REAL!  I hope you enjoy!